Thursday, December 25, 2008

The homeless and hungry outside the Emmanuel Dining Room on Christmas Eve did not expect to have a security wand waved up and down their bodies as they waited to be served lunch. But then, it isn't often that a vice president-elect of the United States serves them their meal.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Continuing his valedictory media tour, President Bush and his family sat down with People magazine. While discussing what he plans to do after he leaves the White House, President Bush said he'd be open to suggestions.

Q: What are you most looking forward to about life after the White House?

The President: It's hard to tell, hard to imagine what it's like to go from 100 miles an hour to 5. I'm going to want to build a policy institute at Southern Methodist, probably write a book. And beyond that, I'm open for suggestions. [laughter]

OK, here's a suggestion:

Just go die, you sociopathic little motherfucker. Why not consider visiting upon yourself a little of the suffering you've inflicted upon thousands and thousands of others?

Thursday, December 11, 2008

The day that some gutless state legislature (TX, anyone?) allows passage of a law permitting students to carry concealed weapons on campus is the day I--and Dharmonia--pick up and move to another state and job. Not out of fear for my safety--I've taken guns away from people before this--but because I will not work in an environment in which politicians of such cowardice permit the ratcheting-up of danger to my students.

And don't give me that bullshit about how it would "allow students to protect themselves in the event of a campus shooter incident." It might--but it would massively increase the odds of students themselves make stupid weapons decisions. More people die from firearms in the hands of people they know than are ever killed by "random shooters."

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Every single one of these people just made my Netflix "priority" list, as if they weren't there already. As my hero Frank Zappa said, "You know what those right-wing nutjobs hate, more than anything? They hate it when you laugh at them--they really hate that, it's like they're a hot-air balloon that just got pricked and it flies around the room making rude noises."

Marc Blitzstein (heroic composer of The Cradle Will Rock) is alive and well.

Extra credit: spot all the other Hollywood stalwarts who make up the balance of the cast. I've got:

Friday, November 21, 2008

Six Republicans in the Senate voted, in the current catastrophic jobs/mortgage/credit climate, to deny an extension of unemployment benefits. How selfish and out-of-touch does a congress-critter have to be to do this? I'll bet a year's pay that not one of these subhuman assholes has ever worked with his hands, for minimum wage, or without some kind of special financial treatment.

But Father Ted's got their number. He may be an elderly lion, dying of brain cancer, but he is still more of a man than the Shameful Six:

In one of the best Senate-floor speeches I ever heard Ted Kennedy (D-MA) give, he brutalized Senate Republicans for continuing to block the first increase in the minimum wage in almost a decade and roared to the other side of the aisle "What is it about working men and women that you find so offensive?"

"What is it about it that drives you Republicans crazy? What is it?" asked Kennedy about GOP objections to raising the minimum wage rate. "What is the price that the workers have to pay to get an increase?"

Monday, November 17, 2008

Watching loofah-Bill on The Daily Show where, as is his wont, Stewart is entirely too kindly: scum like O'Reilly don't deserve to be made fun of, much less treated with the nudge-nudge wink-wink "it's all just an ironic television put-on" reception that Stewart gives similar troglodytes.

I would give up a year of my life for five minutes in a room, no-holds-barred, with O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and any other such-like haters--or, hell, with all of them at the same time.

These guys don't deserve a platform--they deserve a beat-down . On at least as severe as the suffering and hatred they have sown, with impunity, for entirely too many years.

There's not a one of these guys I don't want a piece of. Jobsite-test.

WASHINGTON -- With growing talk in Washington that President Bush may be considering an unprecedented "blanket pardon" for people involved in his administration's brutal interrogation policies, advisors to Barack Obama are pressing ahead with plans for a nonpartisan commission to investigate alleged abuses under Bush.

The Obama plan, first revealed by Salon in August, would emphasize fact-finding investigation over prosecution. It is gaining currency in Washington as Obama advisors begin to coordinate with Democrats in Congress on the proposal. The plan would not rule out future prosecutions, but would delay a decision on that matter until all essential facts can be unearthed.

They did this in post-apartheid South Africa, as well: the Truth & Justice commissions, run by the saintly Bishop Desmond Tutu, emphasized not prosecution or vengeance, but simple truth: the recognition that the only way that nation could ever possibly heal from the psychotic brutality of the apartheid years was for everyone involved--both victims and criminals--to simply acknowledge the truth of what had been done.

War crimes, baby. You monsters should be terrified, because this community organizer (that one's for you, Governor), is going to turn over all your rocks--pardons be damned.

Friday, November 14, 2008

In the wake of the Republican Governors Association (RGA) convention this week in Miami, many GOP governors were reluctant to embrace Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) as the party’s leader or presidential candidate for 2012. Today, the RGA made that sentiment official, by not voting her in to any of the organization’s leadership positions...Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was voted RGA chairman, taking over the top job from Texas Gov. Rick Perry who will now serve as finance chairman. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is vice-chairman, while Florida Gov. Charlie Crist will serve as chair for the annual RGA gala, and Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue will head up the recruitment effort....Not on the list? Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who also attended the Miami meeting.

The article neglects to mention that she addressed the convention, but landed no gig. Guess they weren't buying whatever she was selling.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Olbermann challenged Bill O'Reilly to an arm wrestling match, and is sure that he would win:

"He'd never do it, because every time we're in the same place, he keeps himself 25 feet away, but I'm ready to go. I do yoga, work out three times a week. I think I could take him if it comes to that."

A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist dictatorship."It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Rep. Paul Broun said...

The Obama transition team declined to comment on Broun's remarks. But spokesman Tommy Vietor said Obama was referring in the speech to a proposal for a civilian reserve corps that could handle postwar reconstruction efforts such as rebuilding infrastructure _ an idea endorsed by the Bush administration.

You know, kinda like the WPA?

They're only tough until they lose. Then they turn into the biggest crybaby paranoiacs in the world.

No, Paulie: it's not "a bit crazy and off base"--it's a lot crazy and off-base. And cowardly.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Actually, these are Robert Gibbs, David Plouffe, the President-Elect, and David Axelrod. These guys are the brain-trust who ran the most perfect, virtually seamless, ferociously competent political campaign I have ever seen. And every one of them is going into the White House in one or another capacity.

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family--clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast."

This should come as no surprise to anyone. She behaved precisely the same way throughout her mayorality and governorship.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

The hard-right greed-and-repression wing of the Conservative Party will try to spin this landslide defeat, not as a rejection of a political philosophy, but "merely" a rejection of those "failed-conservatives" Bush II and McCain.

"Voters did not reject conservatism," Richard A. Viguerie, the Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, said. "They rejected Big Government Republicanism in all its forms, including the Bush administration and the Republican leadership in Congress."

Ss_212x CIA-linked private military contractor Evergreen Defense & Security Services offered to post sentries at Oregon election offices on Tuesday, "detaining troublemakers" and making sure voters "do not get out of control."

In an e-mail to local election supervisors, obtained by the McMinnville, Oregon News Register, Evergreen president Tom Wiggins said he "recognized the potential conflict" that could occur on November 4th. "Never has there been a more heated battle in the race for president."

I swear to God I don't think I'm going to sleep in the next 48 hours. My uni won its 500th victory this past week, winning in the last 10 seconds of play, gutting it out because they refused to believe the hype about the other side, defeating a #1 ranked team for the first time ever, and in the next 36 hours Barack Obama is going to become the first African-American president of this nation.

Absolutely masterful Palin-parody from an old friend from Bloomington days:

JD: Governor, may I call you Sarah?

SP: You betcha.

JD: I just simply can’t believe in the midst of this intense campaign season, you could find the time to talk with me about the “Hammerklavier” Sonata.

SP: Well, ya know, Beethoven was the dude who said thanks but no thanks to Napoleon. Plus from all the mavericky songs he wrote, maybe this one could be known as the most maverickyest.

JD: I have to confess I’m a bit surprised you are so familiar with this particular work.

SP: Well, Mr. Snooty Juilliard Graduate, I’ll have you know I did my thesis on the Hammerklavier at Hawaiian Pacific University. Of course I had to continue revising it at Northern Idaho Massage Institute. And at Montana College for Bear-Loving Beauty Pageant Alumni. But also too the Hammerklavier’s on my ‘Pod whenever I go wolf hunting … those dactyls get me SUPER pumped...

JD: But Sarah—to play devil’s advocate here—you could make that one of the defining, most beautiful elements of the piece is the presence of sort of “radical” notes, notes that don’t really belong in B-flat major, strange other notes, neither major nor minor …

SP: All that sounds really good on paper, Jeremy, at your Ivy League coffeeshops and so forth, but out here in the real world where I’m sitting there’s plenty of common sense telling me that wrong notes are wrong notes. There was a great piece on Lou Dobbs the other day about this, called “Why Is G-Flat Getting My Tax Dollars?”...

JD: Tell me your thoughts about the slow movement.

SP: [pause] In what respect, Jeremy?

JD: The third movement: how would you describe it?

SP: [pause] I gotta confess, I usually fast forward through that one … It’s kind of a bummer. And since unlike some Americans out there I don’t hate America, I don’t want to dwell on all those negativity.

JD: But some people might make the case that the third movement is kind of the emotional core of the work … ?

SP: Ya know, I feel pretty strongly that a composer is a lot like a musicologist, except that he has actual notes to put down on paper. [Applause]...

JD: Sarah, the last movement is one of the most famously difficult things in all the piano repertoire. Do you have any advice for this American pianist about this movement before he performs this work on tour?

This is the kind of "Mean Girls" shit that ensues when you have an entire mass-media, and an entire campaign for Vice President of the United States of America, run as if it were a "class president" election in Napoleon Dynamite:

Palin Blows Off Fox News, Lies About Agreeing To Appear With Megyn Kelly»

Last week, Fox News host Megyn Kelly complained that Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AZ) hadn’t done enough interviews on Fox. “She has yet to do any Fox daytime. She has not gone on this broadcast. She hasn’t gone on Fox and Friends. She hasn’t done Brit Hume’s show,” Kelly said. Days later, Kelly announced that Palin had finally granted her an interview to be aired today at 9am.

This morning, however, Kelly announced that Palin had backed out at the last minute, less than 24 hours before their scheduled 10-minute sit-down on Sunday:

Now on Friday, we promised you an interview with Gov. Sarah Palin. We did that because the McCain camp promised us, after weeks of negotiating, that the governor would sit down with me in Ohio on Sunday. On Saturday, less than 24 hours before the interview, the McCain camp canceled, saying that the the governor would not meet with us after all. They claimed that the governor suddenly did not have any time over the coming 72 hours to make good on her agreement of a 10-minute sit-down. We apologize for the McCain camp breaking its word. Our viewers certainly deserve better.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Giggling like a schoolgirl because she thinks she's talking to Pres. Sarkozy of France, even when her interlocutor says, "Oh, yesss, I love zat aerial 'unting, killing aneemals from ze 'elicopter, jus' keeling theengs."

She's not a maverick. She's even going "rogue." She just thinks running for the Vice Presidency of the United States is like running for class president.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

All folks who pretend to religion and grace,Allow there’s a HELL, but dispute of the place:But, if HELL may by logical rules be definedThe place of the damned -I’ll tell you my mind.Wherever the damned do chiefly abound,Most certainly there is HELL to be found:Damned poets, damned critics, damned blockheads, damned knaves,Damned senators bribed, damned prostitute slaves;Damned lawyers and judges, damned lords and damned squires;Damned spies and informers, damned friends and damned liars;Damned villains, corrupted in every station;Damned time-serving priests all over the nation;And into the bargain I’ll readily give youDamned ignorant prelates, and counsellors privy.Then let us no longer by parsons be flammed,For we know by these marks the place of the damned:And HELL to be sure is at Paris or Rome.How happy for us that it is not at home!

You noble Diggers all, stand up now, stand up now,You noble Diggers all, stand up now,The wast land to maintain, seeing Cavaliers by nameYour digging does maintain, and persons all defameStand up now, stand up now.

Your houses they pull down, stand up now, stand up now,Your houses they pull down, stand up now.Your houses they pull down to fright your men in townBut the gentry must come down, and the poor shall wear the crown.Stand up now, Diggers all.

With spades and hoes and plowes, stand up now, stand up nowWith spades and hoes and plowes stand up now,Your freedom to uphold, seeing Cavaliers are boldTo kill you if they could, and rights from you to hold.Stand up now, Diggers all.

Theire self-will is theire law, stand up now, stand up now,Theire self-will is theire law, stand up now.Since tyranny came in they count it now no sinTo make a gaol a gin, to starve poor men therein.Stand up now, Diggers all.

The gentrye are all round, stand up now, stand up now,The gentrye are all round, stand up now.The gentrye are all round, on each side they are found,Theire wisdom's so profound, to cheat us of our groundStand up now, stand up now.

The lawyers they conjoyne, stand up now, stand up now,The lawyers they conjoyne, stand up now,To arrest you they advise, such fury they devise,The devill in them lies, and hath blinded both their eyes.Stand up now, stand up now.

The clergy they come in, stand up now, stand up now,The clergy they come in, stand up now.The clergy they come in, and say it is a sinThat we should now begin, our freedom for to win.Stand up now, Diggers all.

The tithes they yet will have, stand up now, stand up now,The tithes they yet will have, stand up now.The tithes they yet will have, and lawyers their fees crave,And this they say is brave, to make the poor their slave.Stand up now, Diggers all.

'Gainst lawyers and 'gainst Priests, stand up now, stand up now,'Gainst lawyers and 'gainst Priests stand up now.For tyrants they are both even flatt againnst their oath,To grant us they are loath free meat and drink and cloth.Stand up now, Diggers all.

The club is all their law, stand up now, stand up now,The club is all their law, stand up now.The club is all their law to keep men in awe,But they no vision saw to maintain such a law.Stand up now, Diggers all.

The Cavaleers are foes, stand up now, stand up now,The Cavaleers are foes, stand up now;The Cavaleers are foes, themselves they do discloseBy verses not in prose to please the singing boyes.Stand up now, Diggers all.

To conquer them by love, come in now, come in nowTo conquer them by love, come in now;To conquer them by love, as itt does you behove,For hee is King above, noe power is like to love,Glory heere, Diggers all.

Monday, October 27, 2008

RALEIGH— Tomorrow, members of the cast of the Peabody Award-winning drama series, The Wire will attend a Backyard Brunch for Barack in Raleigh. Seven of the show’s cast members will visit the Tarheel State in support of the change Barack Obama will bring across the country and in North Carolina.

On Monday, Chad Coleman, Deidre Lovejoy, and Jamie Hector will visit UNC Chapel Hill and Duke University to encourage students to vote early. Early voting in North Carolina started October 16 and November 1 is the last day voters may take advantage of early voting.

Just like the Civil Rights Era: the oligarchs whipped-up the fascist base to do the dirty work, and keep their own patrician hands clean, and then claimed "no one could ever had predicted" that the fascist base would revert to their most blatant racist instincts:

From the very beginning, there were consistencies and inconsistencies in Ashley Todd's narrative about the alleged attack she suffered. The inconsistencies were within the story itself (the reverse "B" most obviously). The consistencies were with a long, long history of lies about blacks that are inescapably linked with racism in all its forms, from slavery, through segregation, through the "colorblind" racism of the present day. Both leaped out at me as the story exploded. Among the consistencies were the 4,742 identified lynchings from 1882 to 1964.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Years ago--at least 8 now--Dharmonia and I were living in Bloomington, Indiana, finishing up various protracted degrees. Amongst our great friends and lasting influences there were this community of Tibetan monks, who taught us, fed us, and provided us a spiritual home. We loved and love those guys and we are deeply, deeply indebted to them.

Had fun with them, too: they were/are great sports fans, loved the Indianapolis Colts and Indiana basketball (they thought it was riotously funny when we moved to Texas, shortly to be followed by this jackass). One night, Dharmonia's friend Sonja, just after she had gotten her first cell phone, had taken a bunch of the Buddha-boys to a Pacers game. About mid-way through that game, they all thought it would be a great idea to ring Dharmonia from that horrible blockhouse the Conseco fieldhouse, and yell "Waazzzzzuppppppp!!!!!!" a la the original Budweiser commercial:

I thought of the Buddha-boys when I saw this. Because they would have seen its truth:

Thursday, October 23, 2008

This is something that the entitled, lying, "we're REAL Americans", oligarchic fucks like Sarah "I'm just a hockey mom but I need $150K of new clothes" Palin and John "My friends, I've never had to pay for my own health care" McCain will never understand, even long after they've gone down in flames to defeat:

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Monday, October 20, 2008

The African-American centenarian remembers a time not long ago when she was barred from voting because of her race. Now she hopes to see the day that Obama is elected as the nation's first black president.

NB: Let it be clear that I do not believe that the people screaming "Kill him!" at Palin's Nuremberg Rallies are the core constituency of the Republican Party. But I do believe that, over the last 8 years--and really since '94, with the Gingrich "Revolution"--much more rational people in the Republican party have allowed their GOP to be taken over by the most rabid kind of cross-burning gay-bashing lunatics. And the last 8 years have seen that lunatic fringe take over all branches of government. We have to destroy that party because the people controlling it are such complete and utter psychos--or are willing to sell out to said psychos in a last-ditch Hitler-in-the-bunker attempt to hold power.

Friday, October 17, 2008

At least a year ago, my brother-in-music the General, in discussion of Barack versus Hillary, said something that really struck me. I was ranting about how I didn't much like Hillary (still liked her better than Bill, of course) because of her inside-the-Beltway ties, perspectives, and, especially, scumbag campaign managers. I expressed that I preferred Obama's background, and the chance, after 400 years, of voting a black man into the highest office in the land. But, like a lot of the DFH's who have been appalled and nauseated by the high crimes and misdemeanors of the war criminals and sociopaths of the Bush II administration, I doubted whether Barack could be tough enough to take on the entrenched powers. I wanted him to: I wanted a candidate who would rip the hearts out of those criminals and feast on their bones. But I didn't know if he could do it--I couldn't see him being as ferocious as I thought the circumstances demanded.

My buddy said, "Look, he's a black man running for President of the United States. He can't be as fierce--he can't even use the same vocabulary or tone--as a white candidate." And I sort of got that: I got that a black man who used the ferocity I wanted would, in the context of a nation whose guilt and paranoia over what was done to Africans on this continent is still utterly present, be too easily damned, dismissed, or attacked as "just another angry N*****." And I want that: I want fuckin' Malcolm X assaulting the towers of privilege which those old white fuckers have erected.

But you can't govern if you can't get elected. And the General's view was that, in order to get elected, Barack had to be about six times cooler than a white candidate in exactly the same position.

And you know what? I believe the General--a Missouri native who knows how white folks think about black folks--was absolutely dead-on right. And I also believe that Barack, and his people, know that, and have known that, and run their entire campaign--easily the most flawless presidential campaign I can remember in my lifetime--with that in mind.

And the result has been that, one after another, the rich white folks who've gone up against him, whose grasp of the lives of ordinary Americans is inarguably weaker than that of a single-parented black community organizer, have torn themselves to bits--have crashed up against that icy-cool impassivity, that unflappable focus, clarity, and calm, and shown themselves to be the paranoid, entitled, privileged, out-of-touch oligarchs that they are.

You know what was the difference between the two in that "three strikes and you're out," "final nail in the coffin of the Republican party," debate? It was the difference between an old, angry, elitist, privileged, white man who's never had to guard what he says (witness his comment to his wife "at least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you c***!")--and a smart, young, tough, up-from-the-working-class black man, who's always had to.

And the black man's going to win. Because he deserves to--because he's smart enough, tough enough, quick enough, and cool enough. This is who I want sitting down opposite Putin, or Sarkozy, or any of those other strutting peacocks of which W was only the most obviously egocentric, incompetent, under-equipped, and destructive.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Angered by a delay in the receipt of his voter registration card, a Louisiana man today threatened to shoot election officials, claiming that he urgently needed to cast a ballot to "keep the nigger out of office," according to police. Wade Williams, 75, was arrested this morning on a felony terrorizing charge after allegedly calling the Registrar of Voters and warning that he would come to the state office and empty his shotgun unless he got his registration card.

I know a lot of nicey-nice Southern women who know damned well that their privilege depends upon exploitation of others, but who cloak it in the guise of friendly politeness. It's still privilege, it's still exploitative, and Palin is still a demagogue.

Next door kids' yard: fraternity boys, owner kid's dad is a mayor in a metroplex SE of here and actually thought he could run for Tom DeLay's old seat, but his campaign (never very promising) was eight-six'd when it became apparent that they'd Photoshopped his head onto a thinner body. Not bad kids, though they made our lives miserable for the first year until I started documenting the behavior and then sent Dad a registered letter describing the evidence. Haven't had a problem since.

The McCain-Palin signs are sprouting in our neighborhood, at what strikes me as an odd (very tardy) time. Typically and in past years, this entire state, county, and city have been a Republican shoo-in. But this year, as a result I believe of a very real fear & loathing growing in the Republican base, the local Club-for-Growth assholes (developers, realtors, and other Good Old Boys) are realizing there's a seismic shift coming, and that they might actually have to work to keep the county red. They'll probably succeed--but it's a bunch of resource-money that can't be spent elsewhere. And, to my opinion much more important, the visibility for the first time of a Democratic/progressive presence in this town--Obama rallies on the courthouse square, Obama T-shirts and bumper stickers on campus, a plethora of Obama ads on the tube--is changing the underlying power dynamics.

For eight years Dharmonia and I have avoided political bumper stickers on our car: not because we were intimidated or shy about sharing our political opinions, but rather because even a "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" bumper sticker could get your tires slashed. The Republican "moral majority"--really, a sense of inevitable entitlement and arrogant Good Citizen hubris--was so great that punks thought they could so operate with impunity. That is clearly shifting in this cycle, and Dems/progressives are clearly feeling empowered, even in this Reddest county of the Reddest state.

I'm quite sure that the frat boys next door didn't go out and either locate or even place this sign--there's a local Repub organizer just down the block and I'm quite sure he/she/it knocked on doors volunteering to place the signs (curious but not surprising that they didn't knock on our door). The frat boys are way too lazy, passive, and entitled to take such effort.

But I love that the sign is posted in the middle of the unkempt yard that they're too lazy, passive, and entitled to take care of--because down in Sugar Land there were always Brown People who came and took care of it for them--and I love that the guy who planted the sign put it right next to a fire hydrant. Right where the neighborhood dogs would piss on it.

Metaphor for the GOP this cycle: deep in the weeds and realizing they're about to get pissed on.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

During a town hall in Scranton, PA on Monday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) declared that “there’s only one ethnic joke that can be told in American politics and that’s Irish jokes.” McCain then preceded to tell a joke about drunk Irish twins.

This is the same guy who repeatedly told the "joke" ascribing Chelsea Clinton's "ugliness" to the fact that "her father was Janet Reno."

Who's the "ugly" one again, Senator?

He's not a "maverick." He's a senile, out-of-touch, angry old man and he's got no business speaking for--or to--Americans.

I've got news for you, Senator. You try on that joke the Irish-American contexts in which I hang out and they'll rip you a new one. And I'll help.

"If the American people don't get the information that is relevant about these candidates and instead in the last four weeks all they are hearing about are smears and Swift Boat tactics that can have an impact on the election. We have seen it before, and this election is too important to be sitting on the sidelines. If Senator McCain wants to focus on the issues then that is what we focus on. But if Senator McCain wants to have a character debate that is one that we're willing to have."

The money-quote?

"One of the things we've done during this campaign: we don't throw the first punch.

But we'll throw the last."

It's the old job-site test. There's a reason that lobbyists and Rich Bastards support McCain, and that poor folks, brown folks, women, and rock 'n' rollers support Obama. As Hunter Thompson said, in the great Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972:

Humphrey tried to go into Miami with a little bit of bargaining power left, but McGovern's merciless young street-fighters chopped him down with all the rest.

Take a number, John. You're about to get your long-past-due ticket punched, too.

In the glory years (recently departed) of the New England Patriots, before Brady had been injured and before the ridiculous "Video-gate" accusations against Bill Belichek, for doing what every coach in the NFL did (e.g, tape the opposing team's signals), the two were sometimes asked why, when they were beating the living shit out of some opponent by 20 or more points, they would not let up, but instead would "run up" the score by 30 or 40. As if guys with the mental and physical toughness to make it to the NFL would "have their feelings hurt" by being beaten 30 or 40 instead 0f 20. It was a ridiculous accusation, which says more about the degree to which victim politics has saturated our culture, taking over even stadia full of football fans.

Some thing applies to the coming Republican obliteration. They're going to get creamed at every and in virtually every race they're formerly accustomed to thinking as locked: statehouse, state governments, House, Senate, and Oval Office. I'm predicting 14-17 seats in the House, a minimum of 5 (and more likely 7 or so) in the Senate, and I'm predicting Obama by at least 6% of the popular vote and a huge majority of electoral votes.

And Obama's hellfire-and-damnation GOTV organizers and Internet geniuses are not letting up. And you know why? Because the two stolen elections of 2000 and 2004 have cost trillions in unnecessary debt, the destruction of America's moral standing in the world, and, oh yeah, maybe 100,000 civilian deaths. Not to mention the likely-irreversible destruction of the natural environment.

We need a huge crushing victory in the battleground states--a victory so big that Diebold and the Kathleen Harris's of the world can't steal it as they did twice before.

Democrats in Florida have some reason for optimism today as the state party announced that, at the close of voter registration season on Monday, it had gained nearly 250,000 more voters this year than the Republican Party...Most striking is the net gain numbers, which factor in newly registered voters, party switchers and removes people who are no longer voters in Florida. Since January, the Florida Democratic Party has had a net gain of 415,580 voters, while the Republican Party of Florida has only gained 169,841. This shows that the gap between Democrats and Republicans in Florida has grown by 245,739 voters this year alone...In Florida, 82 percent of those new black voters registered as Democrats, with 15 percent identifying as independents, and only three percent marking themselves down as Republicans.

Meanwhile in Ohio, a spokesman from Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner's office told the Huffington Post that the state gained nearly 500,000 new voters over the course of the last nine months -- shooting from 7,676,986 voters on December 31 of last year to 8,172,229 as of last night. Ohio doesn't keep track of party or demographic information, but both state parties will surely be crunching the data ahead of "get out the vote" operations in the coming weeks.

We need a landslide victory so big they can't steal it. We can't afford anything other.

...the unexamined-by-the-thought-process Republican frat kids ("I'm a Republican because Mom & Dad are Republicans, and they're Republicans because Gramma and Grand-dad were Republicans, and they were Republicans because...") in my neighborhood, that is. After last night's debacle between Grumpy Grampa Simpson and that "icy mofo" who's going to be our next President (moderated by Tom "Greatest Generation because I was almost part of it" Brokaw), this morning the frat-boys' unkempt and bottle-riddled front lawns are sprouting McCain-Palin signs. They're getting scared--their presumption, engrained for the entire duration of their barely-cognizant "adult" intellectual lives, that Republicans always won because they were the Good People, not like those Bad Brown People, Terrorists, and Dirty F*cking Hippies, is tottering on its foundations. And they are becoming dimly aware that their Grand Old Party of Good People is actually going to lose. And all they got in response is lawn signs (just like all Mom 'n' Dad had to "support the troops" was a magnetic flag decal).

And they're going to lose. If for no other reason than that Grampa Simpson comes across, so clearly, as a mean little man. The nerve of the guy, to rail against "entitlements"! He's run his entire life, ever since dumping his first wife for a pill-addicted heiress, as if entitled. And now he thinks he's entitled to the Presidency. And he can't believe that this slim, young, "untested," articulate, smart, charismatic, eloquent Brown Person is going to defeat him. In the first debate, Grampa wouldn't even look at Obama. In the second, he'd look at him, but the raging contempt he feels came out clear as a bell when he called his fellow Senator "That One."

He sounded like nothing so much as a crotchety senior uncle who can't keep track of the grand-kids names anymore. And every time he dissed Obama, his CNN trend lines plunged.

Best line from the DFH bloggers in the wake of last night? From the Manchester Guardian's (one of the world's great leftist news organizations) Melissa McEwan:

McCain needed to win; he did not. He got owned. Say goodnight, Johnny. It's "President That One" to you.

Say goodnight, Frat-boys. Your world is about to get a lot more confusing and your sense of entitlement is about to topple. And it's about time.

I've created this as a space in parallel with several other blogs. Those others are ones I know my own students read, but I also know that many of my students see political and social-justice issues differently than do I.

I'm intending to post the most radical political material here, no longer over there, so that those students who are made uncomfortable by invective and spleen can focus on the topics in the original blog. I want my people to feel happy and comfortable about visiting for the pedagogy & scholarship topics, even if they prefer to avoid the more inflammatory stuff.

What follows will be the most recent invective from over there, now moved over here.

About Me

In the wake of tenure, now able to de-cloak and stand by abusive and acerbic opinions contained herein. Disclaimer: these are personal opinions expressed in public space--which the members of a free democracy are (once again) permitted to do. If you disagree, complain to me, not my employers.
Associate professor and Chair of musicology and Director of the Vernacular Music Center.